Jasper Mayor Mike Lout is no longer speaking to his friend, Councilman Willie Land, whose seat is next to the mayor’s in the City Council chambers. Lout is accused of promising the police chief’s job to a former police captain.

Photo By Karen Warren/Staff

CENTER OF THE STORM: Rodney Pearson, a former highway patrolman, was chosen by the African-American majority City Council as Jasper police chief despite his failure to meet the academic/experience requirements of the job.

Photo By Karen Warren/Staff

Jasper, a Deep East Texas town with a population of about 8,000, has worked hard to stay ahead of its neighbors in race relations. But now a dispute over the hiring of an African-American police chief is disrupting the town's racial harmony.

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A WHO'S WHO

James Byrd Jr.: Jasper black man whose mangled body was discovered near a town cemetery in June 1998.

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JASPER - When it comes to race relations, Jasper, a poor East Texas timber town with deep southern roots, has worked hard to stay a step ahead of its neighbors. African-Americans have done well here, serving as mayor, hospital administrator and president of school board and Chamber of Commerce.

Those efforts faced the ultimate test in June 1998 when the mangled, headless body of James Byrd Jr., a black man, was discovered at a local cemetery. Byrd, 49, had been beaten, urinated on and dragged two miles behind a pickup by log chains attached to his ankles.

As the nation recoiled from the episode's savagery, townsfolk rose to the crisis.

Authorities called in the FBI and vigorously prosecuted the white suspects, Lawrence Brewer, John King and Shawn Berry. Residents packed a prayer session, dismantled a sagging cemetery fence that separated black and white graves and cheered when Brewer and White were sentenced to die and Berry to prison for life.

Now, though, with Brewer's execution just weeks away, Jasper has split along racial lines in a political dispute of unprecedented bitterness.

At issue is an April decision, carried 4-1 by the City Council's four-member black majority, to hire an African-American, former highway patrolman Rodney Pearson, as police chief.

Critics, whose most visible leaders are white, say Pearson was ramrodded into office over more qualified candidates, at least one of whom is black. They point to occasions in which Pearson passed bad checks as reason for denying him the job.

Accusations of a deal

Pearson's African-American supporters, including former Mayor R.C. Horn, charge that Mayor Mike Lout, the white owner of radio station KJAS, had promised the job to police Capt. Gerald Hall, a white who was the department's second-in-command.

Intensifying the dispute was Pearson's reorganization of the department, including a demotion for Hall, who questioned the new chief's ability to lead the agency.

Hall and several other unsuccessful contenders for the chief's job have filed discrimination complaints against the city, and a group calling itself the "League of Concerned Citizens" has led a successful petition drive for a Nov. 8 vote to recall Willie Land, Tommy Adams and Terrya Norsworthy, the black City Council members who backed Pearson. A fourth black council member involved in the controversy left office in May.

The dispute has spawned a storm of Internet chatter, including racist denunciations of blacks, and the picketing of at least one white-owned business and the vandalism of another.

Jasper race relations before the Pearson controversy stood at "eight on a scale of 10," said Alton Scott, a black city councilman who took office in May after the controversial votes. "Now they're about a three."

Friendships have been wrecked, including one of nearly two decades between Land and Lout.

Longtime buddies

The men had been longtime drinking buddies and played pivotal roles in one another's political careers. Their crippled friendship has left both puzzled and saddened.

Even those on the dispute's periphery have suffered.

"Gerald Hall and I are extremely good friends. Rodney Pearson and I are really good friends," said Billy Rowles, Jasper County sheriff at the time of Byrd's murder. "All the officers who are laid off or quit, we're good friends. It's got Billy Rowles in a bind."

Norsworthy, in midway through her second two-year term, marveled at the Pearson decision's ability to sow discord.

"There's never been anything of this magnitude," she said of the controversy. "We've never had a bad disagreement. On this we all voted on who we thought was the best applicant, and now we find ourselves in this recall."

The dispute erupted early this year when incumbent Police Chief Todd Hunter left to take the chief's position in Kilgore. Before he departed, he recommended his top commander, Hall, be considered as his successor.

Pearson's supporters accuse Lout of promising the job to Hall. Land suggested that the son of Lout's girlfriend - a police officer - might have been promoted if Hall had become chief.

Lout, who has no vote as mayor, said Hall and Pearson both approached him about the chief's job and he advised them to apply. He also told Pearson, then the town's fire chief, that he favored filling the position from within the department.

Land confronted the mayor with accusations that he had promised Hall the job in a backroom deal.

"I asked him who said that," Lout said. "He said everybody in the department heard it ... Chief Hunter and me behind closed doors. There never was any closed door that day. I told him to take me to whoever said that and I'd call him a goddamn liar. Ain't no one done that yet."

Rowles vouched for Lout. "There are a lot of things you can accuse Mike Lout of, but lying is not one of them," Rowles said. "If Mike Lout said it would be 28 degrees tomorrow, I'd go out and get a coat."

Whether Lout offered Hall the permanent job may be unresolved, but in an email to Hall's wife, the former police chief confirmed that Lout offered Hall the interim job.

Temporary hire

City Council unanimously voted to give Pearson the job on a temporary basis in February and mutterings of municipal treachery grew as the city began soliciting applications for the permanent position.

The city's job posting stipulated the new chief should have at least a bachelor's degree in law enforcement or a minimum of seven years of police managerial experience.

Among the 22 applicants were candidates with multiple or advanced academic degrees. Neither Pearson nor Hall met those requirements. When the city human resources officer ranked candidates using Texas Police Chief Association criteria, Hall rated five on a 10-point scale, Pearson three.

After interviews in early April, council debated the merits of nine candidates - the top seven ranked applicants, plus Pearson and Hall, then voted without discussion. The only dissenting vote to Pearson's selection came from white councilman Randy Sayers, who supported former North Forest School District Police Chief Holland Jones, an African-American.

Rowles said the council exercised "bad judgment" in Pearson's appointment, giving the appearance of a secret deal. Former Mayor Horn, who held office when Byrd was killed, disagreed. "The mayor and some of the others didn't get what they wanted," he said. "... The council had the right to do this."

Jasper businesswoman Vickie Stewart filed an open records request with the city for a background check on the new chief.

Pearson, she found, had been accused of writing a bad check while a Sweetwater highway patrolman in the early 1990s and had been suspended for another bad check incident while assigned to Jasper. Reports on his job performance were mixed.

Pearson and his lawyer acknowledged the offenses, calling them unfortunate "mistakes." Stewart also accused Pearson of being less than honest in answering questions on the police chief job application.

"Honestly, there's always been a target on my back," Pearson said. "A political person always paints a target on his back."

FBI probe sought

In June, black council members sought an FBI investigation into "threats and discriminatory treatment being heaped upon the police chief and the minority City Council members."

They accused Lout's radio station of racially biased reporting - a charge the mayor denied.

Walter Diggles, executive director of the Deep East Texas Council of Governments and a Pearson supporter, tried to cool tempers by holding a conflict resolution session. Whatever salubrious balm resulted from the session soon wore off.

When submitted in late July, the petitions had more than the needed number of signatures. A city charter glitch permitted all registered voters to sign the petitions, even though two targeted members were elected in single-member districts.

Lawsuit forced vote

City Council took up the issue days later, with Sayers offering a motion to set a November voting date. When the motion died for lack of a second, the League of Concerned Citizens filed suit to force the vote.

Last Monday, a Beaumont court ordered the city to set a ballot date. City Council unanimously set a Nov. 8 date on Thursday, but after the meeting, Pearson opponents and backers began shouting at each other, prompting police to disperse the crowd.

Meeting at New Lighthouse Church of God in Christ, where Diggles is pastor, Pearson supporters last week laid the groundwork for a drive to register voters and launch an effort to recall the mayor.

"Being together is not about black and white," Diggers said. "It's about being right."

Lawyers told those gathered - including a sister of James Byrd - that an effort to stop the recall vote would be launched in federal court.

The Rev. Ray Lewis, pastor of Jasper's Faith Temple Church of God in Christ, invited his audience to participate in a "prayer for peace" on Sept. 21 - the night the first of Byrd's killers will be put to death.